Introduction

Damage from the 1999 Izmit earthquake

Seismic hazard is the potential for, or probability of,
dangerous earthquake-related phenomena. Most often, this is ground
shaking but it could also be liquefaction or fault rupture at the
ground surface.

There are a number of methods that have been used
to estimate seismic hazard. This text gives a quick guide as to how
they work, with some comments as to their advantages and disadvantages.
It concludes with a couple of more general issues relating to seismic
hazard.